Andean Silver (ASX:ASL) has uncovered a new, “large”, mineralised district at the Cerro Bayo Silver-Gold Project in Chile, with rock chip assays up to 9,929 grams per tonne (g/t) silver-equivalent.
Rock chip and channel sampling was carried out over an initial 4km by 1.8km area, resulting in extensive outcropping veins being defined over a “large”, stand-alone area at Cerro Bayo.
Andean Silver, which has a market capitalisation of $86.17 million, says the results show the potential of the project and the scope to generate future growth outside known resource areas.
Rock chip assay results include 9,929g/t silver-equivalent (2,351g/t silver and 91.3g/t gold); 4,650g/t silver-equivalent (1,845g/t silver and 33.8g/t gold); and 3,513g/t silver-equivalent (1,341g/t silver and 26.2g/t gold).
Meanwhile, assay results from the desktop review of sawn channel results include 1.7m @ 581g/t silver-equivalent (282g/t silver and 3.6g/t gold); and 0.7m @ 16,985g/t silver-equivalent (8,677g/t silver and 100.1g/t gold).
CEO Tim Laneyrie says the company has mapped the outcropping veins over an area twice the size of the original Cerro Bayo mine, which was the most prolific mine this region ever hosted.
“The results announced today demonstrate the immense potential of this area,” Laneyrie says.
“To establish such a significant target with dozens of high-grade silver-gold veins over 4km in strike and nearly 2km wide within an area with such a long operational history, demonstrates yet again the compelling untapped potential of this region.
“We will now move quickly to refine drill targets with further sampling ahead of a drilling program.”
Andean Silver is continuing to evaluate historic brownfields drill targets for expansion of the resource estimate base. The updated resource estimate is on track for release this quarter, with another one planned for late December this year.
An infill drilling campaign at Pegaso 7 will be carried out to support the December resource estimate, and an extensional drilling campaign to further test down plunge extensions.
Separately, the company will begin an infill and extensional drilling program at the Coyita mineralised shoots.
Further, Andean Silver is continuing to expand the Droughtmaster corridor and open up further new districts through on-ground mapping, alongside evaluating a combination of geophysical and hyperspectral methods of identifying drill targets.
These activities are part of the company’s 12 month strategy to build on the initial base resource estimate, near mine extensional drilling targets, and greenfields opportunities that have been defined.
Andean Silver believes in boots on the ground geology work and is actively exploring more than 300km2 of granted tenure to generate a robust project pipeline.
The Cerro Bayo Project currently hosts indicated and inferred resources of 5 million tonnes at 311g/t for 50 million ounces of contained silver-equivalent.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Andean Silver
